About Me

Thursday, 6 August 2015

Sounding Out The Past

The news of
the week has been a time for some reflections and to consider the odd
connections that arise. One major event
for the media and many people is the sad and tragic loss of Cilla Black and a
pity of it is the silly things that are said and how few understand where she
came from in all senses.

Then there has
been the ongoing business of the alleged end of the Labour Party with the rise
of Jeremy Corbyn to head the leadership race.
I cannot claim to have forecast this, only to point out that history
tells us the unexpected can happen in politics.

What is
intriguing here is that his elder brother, Piers, an activist of the Left
scientist, is in the business, real business, of weather forecasting. His record here seems to be patchy, which is
unlucky for those businesses for whom the weather is important.

Another loss
which drew obituaries in a couple of the "quality" press and academic
journals is that of Robert Conquest the Anglo-American historian and poet. Once a Communist before 1939, at Oxford
inevitably, he moved on to the Oxford and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry for
the war.

This was the
old 52nd, an interesting regiment. His
experiences led to his moving to The Right.
More to the point he became one of the leading academics and crucial to
the business of deconstructing what the Soviet Union had meant to its people,
especially during the time of Stalin.
During the War, he had been held up as one of the giants of politics and
statesmanship.

Robert pitched up
at the London School of Economics in 1956 in time to be with Ralph Miliband,
Michael Oakeshott, Donald Cameron Watt, WN Medlicott, the International
Historian, Allen the statistician, Carus-Wilson and Fisher, the economic
historians, a mob of Keynesians, the early researchers into game theory; and a rugby
club, largely Welsh, who debagged Lord Boothby in Soho.

One of my
choice memories is in 1959 at the LSE when the Soviet Ambassador was allowed
out to play with the other children in the shape of making a speech. These were rare events and the place was
packed. Also, there was a rare
collection of security hoods on the fringes.

We were
confidently informed that within a decade the GNP of the USSR was to equal that
of the USA and then surpass it during the 1970's, relegating it to a declining
imperialist state. It meant that the USSR would be able to pursue its policies
of bringing peace, happiness, wealth and contentment to its friends and
neighbours.

Alas he was
not well briefed but that did not matter to the believers and the non-believers
did not get to ask any questions. But
there were some there who had not bought into the Stalinism then so fashionable
amongst many of the Western Left. My
problem was that I seen some of the files which told me that the Soviets were
as mad as hatters.

So what I find
curious about Corbyn and friends was that by the late 1960's and into the 70's
when it was becoming more evident to enquiring minds that the USSR was not a
vision for the future and that Stalin's record was a horror that they rejected
this in favour of the propaganda on offer.

In Britain
however, the politicians staggered on and on failing to solve problems and
creating new ones. There were much
relieved by the fact that much of the population had become fixated on a pop
culture rooted in the sales needs of recording companies and show biz. Which brings us back to Cilla.

Born on my
parent's patch as Priscilla Maria Veronica White her parents had a shop down
the road from the ones where my parents had worked, my mother was a White, no
connection established, and at the end of the street where my grandfather was born,
so there is a natural sympathy for the lady.

She became in
time Mrs. Willis. At the other end of
that street you were getting close to the Liverpool workshops of the Willis
Organ makers, very much a leading firm.
In the 19th Century, one of the early founding family, Edwin Willis, who
moved up to Liverpool, in 1881 was still in London, living next door to Karl
Marx.

A man much
admired and followed by the two activist Corbyn brothers but rejected by Robert
Conquest and those who prefer his line of thinking on what real socialism
means. Mrs. Thatcher was a shop girl who
went on to higher things and poor Cilla was often criticised by media and pop
people for giving her some support.

But one of the
thinkers who shaped Mrs. Thatcher's views of international affairs and the
reality of the historical background was Robert Conquest. Indeed Conquest's work and its influence on
so many people in the free world and on perceptions of the USSR, communism and
its socialist outriders was critical to much of the course of late 20th Century
history.

There is a
good deal of Willis organ playing at this year's BBC Proms. if I listen to any
perhaps I will raise a glass to Robert and Cilla, but not to Jeremy.